The invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transporting rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry, such as filter rod sections and plain or filter cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can be utilized to change the direction of advancement of rod-shaped articles (hereinafter called cigarettes for short with the understanding, however, that filter rod sections, cigars, cigarillos and/or cheroots can be manipulated in the same or in a similar way) so that the articles are transferred from a path wherein they advance axially or longitudinally to a path wherein they advance transversely or sideways, or vice versa. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can be utilized with advantage to simultaneously transfer several (e.g., pairs of) cigarettes from first paths wherein the cigarettes advance in one of the aforementioned directions into second paths wherein the cigarettes advance in the other direction.
It is already known to manipulate plain cigarettes in a maker (e.g., in a machine known as PROTOS which is produced by the assignee of the present application) in such a way that successive plain cigarettes of a single file of such articles (wherein the cigarettes are disposed end-to-end as they come from the cutoff which is a device for subdividing a continuous cigarette rod into discrete plain cigarettes) are engaged by successive suction heads of a series of orbiting suction heads and the suction heads transfer the cigarettes into successive axially parallel flutes at the periphery of a rotary drum-shaped conveyor forming part of or serving to deliver cigarettes sideways into a filter tipping machine (such as that known as MAX which is produced by the assignee of the present application) wherein the cigarettes are united with filter plugs to form filter cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length. The drum-shaped conveyor serves to form a row of parallel cigarettes which move at right angles to their respective axes and are disposed at a desired distance from each other. Reference may be had to commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,947 to Schumacher et al. which describes an apparatus capable of converting a single file of rodshaped articles of the tobacco processing industry into one or more rows of articles which move transversely of their respective axes.
The situation is different if the maker is designed to turn out several files of plain cigarettes or like articles or if the articles issuing from two or more makers are to be manipulated for the purpose of introducing them into a filter tipping, packing or other processing machine. Makers which can produce several cigarette rods are gaining in popularity because their output is much higher than that of heretofore known makers which produce a single cigarette rod. All of the articles issuing from a maker that turns out several continuous rods which are subdivided into plain cigarettes or other rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry cannot be readily manipulated by heretofore known transferring apparatus. Therefore, the maker cannot always operate at a maximum speed because the locus of transfer of rod-shaped articles from its outlet to the next machine constitutes or is likely to constitute a bottleneck in a production line that normally includes one or more makers, one or more filter rod making machines, one or more filter tipping machines and one or more packing machines.